Suit of the Week: Bigio

For busy working women, the suit is often the easiest outfit to throw on in the morning. In general, this feature is not about interview suits for women, which should be as classic and basic as you get — instead, this feature is about the slightly different suit that is fashionable, yet professional.

Comments

I want to thank everyone who has told her story about cutting sugar out of her diet and how she’s felt better by doing so (and a big thank you to whomever suggested eating baby carrots instead of Almond Joys). I’ve lost about 5-7 pounds so far after going sugar-free for a month and I have more energy.

Wow! That’s great. I just ended one month of sugar free. It was easier than expected and I actually haven’t eaten as much as I might have thought since (although I did have half cupcake for breakfast but only because I was bringing them into work and wanted to make sure they were edible). I’ve been tracking calories and figure if I have room for the sugar, I can eat it but I need to make sure my other nutrition needs are met first.

It has made me more conscious of things and I eat loads of carrots and peppers to fulfill my sweet and crunchy needs.

No, I’d be miserable. My weakness was definitely jellies so even super sugar-y fruits would be way better than a handful of sour percy the pig gummies for dinner. (My mouth still waters just thinking about them)

Didn’t feel challenged. If I think you think I’m going to lie to a bunch of strangers, then we have big problems :).

The first few days were the hardest. Then it just seemed more normal not to eat it. And now I don’t really miss it unless I think about the lovely blue and white wrapper on my former friend Almond Joy….

i don’t eat a ton of fruit – 2, maybe 3 pieces a week if that, and many weeks none at all. i don’t think eating fruit makes you fat (or, at least i don’t think it makes ME fat), but it does tend to make me crave other sweet things. i’m pretty good about not caving, but sitting around dreaming about sugar just makes me miserable, and why increase my chances of faceplanting into some cookie dough?

I’m going on week two of no processed sugar (fruit is okay), no white bread (no bread at all is how it’s worked out so far, but I’ve has quinoa, whole wheat pasta and sweet potatoes in limited portions) and no fried food (I had a couple of french fries over the weekend). I’ve been craving baked goods more than candy, but it really hasn’t been too difficult. I don’t really need to lose weight, but I feel leaner and a little slimmer. Mostly, I just feel really healthy and I have a ton of energy. It’s forced me to eat way more vegetables and protien.

I think I’ll continue through the holidays, possibly allowing myself a treat if its really worth it and see how I feel.

Oh, I’ve also limited myself to a glass or two of alcohol per sitting and only on the weekends. Last weekend, it worked out that I had a glass of wine with dinner on Friday and Sunday and two IPAs after a race on Saturday — that’s where/when the french fries were consumed, too!

I just got my Narciso R. for Kohl’s order and the stuff is very nice the money! I ordered colorblocked ponte dress with sleeves, the cropped ponte jacket, and the dark blue openwork sweater with sparkly things on it, all for $122. I’ll report back on how everything fits my pear-shaped self.

I got the Colorblock Ponte Sheath Dress in the raspberry color. The ponte material was much thicker than I expected and the color is really pretty in person. The fit is pretty true to size – definitely cut for straight figures though. I’m small chested and the top actually fit, so that might be a good or bad thing for some. The square neckline threw me off at first, but it’s different from any other dress I have so that’s a plus. The length was slightly short, but that’s not uncommon for me (I’m 5’10) and with tights it should be fine.

Overall I was very pleased and am considering the other colorblocked dress.

Me too! The manageing partner LOVES me in RED, so I will show him this Nieman Marcus suit (but I will keep my promise’s and HOLD off buying it until after the Huricane Sandy victim’s get the power back).

I am still NOT decided about the MBA. My dad says I have to take the GMAT, but I thought I could wave in b/c I am already a lawyer. Does any one in the HIVE think I have to take the GMAT? I took the LSAT year’s ago (but did not do that great). If I have to take the GMAT, does the HIVE recomend any prep course I should take? I took the PEEPER Bar Review and Passed the Bar! YAY! I do NOT know if they do GMAT.

Anyway, Roberta says I should get the MBA. She came with me to court, and settled her 2 cases herself with oposing council. Brian gave in AGAIN to her. He was sweating alot but setteled for $1,875 after aksing for $65,000 in the pleedings, and $32,500 in settelment talk’s.
We saved her company alot of money! Yay!

Also, that fish guy called my office. I think he must have saw my breifcase that has my name on the label’s handle. I do NOT want to date a guy who smell’s like fish. He also was way to cocky for me. Just b/c you cut fish all day does NOT mean you are husband material. FOOEY! I do NOT think I will call him back.

Hi Ellen – I’ve done extensive research on Bschools in the US and haven’t come across a situation where they’ll waive the GMAT. You’ll definitely need to take it to apply for the MBA. There are many MBA forums on the internet which will likely be able to give you better advice on GMAT-taking and application. In my experience, the key to GMAT success is practice, practice, practice. Start buying the official GMAT prep guides and doing practice questions. The real test is not all that different from the official GMAT prep guide. Also, if you sign up for the GMAT, I think they give you 2 free computer-based practice tests (which you should wait until you’ve gotten enough practice to take, do not waste it if you haven’t done enough practice questions). Hope this helps!

I have spent so much time since posting this learning random facts. The only way for an animal to kill an adult giraffe is to tip it over, ovoviviparous is the only word in English that is vowel-v-vowel-v-vowel-v-vowel, etc.

Why is it that older c-r e t t e posts say “we like” and “we think,” and now they say “I like” and “I think”? Did Kat used to have a co-author, and now does not? (See link in post for example). Everyone else probs already knows the answer to this, but I have been wondering!

No, no. What HAPPENED TO Shayna was harsh. She overshared a bit and was a bit obnoxious at times (which I realize coming from me is a pot and kettle situation), and she got harshly treated by anons here. Basically, she was bullied and then she disappeared. I still feel terrible for not sticking up for her more. Shayna, if you’re out there, I’m so sorry.

Ugh. That’s awful. I think most of us have said the wrong thing once in awhile, but there’s a huge difference between being corrected (gently, and sometimes, not so gently), and being hounded off the site.

Can anyone recommend an excellent dermatologist in Boston? The reviews on Yelp are all over the place and I went to the South End derm clinic last year and was not impressed. I’m looking for someone who can assist with removing some spots on my face (dermatosis populosis negra, those small black spots that minorities get), to give me some advice on hyperpigmentation, and just generally some ideas on how to keep my skin looking healthy and young.

Skin Care Physicians on Route 9 in Chestnut Hill. I have several friends whose PCPs sent them there for mole removals and things like that, and I’ve used them for spider veins. They do both medical dermatology (my own term, not sure how you really describe it) and aesthetic procedures.

Sigh – went for my semi-annual hair cut (yes, twice a year) and spent twice as much on product (shampoo, conditioner, hair oil for the winter, and travel sizes) as I did on the cut. Gulp – at least I’m only buying product twice a year too.

And . . . I’M PREGNANT!!! Can’t tell anyone in real life, so there ya go. Just had to get it off my chest!!! Oh my goodness. We’ve been trying for about 6 months, and I was starting to get kinda freaked out.

Just signed a contract to become an independent consultant at a very small private practice. Not only did I get what I wanted amended in the contract, I also negotiated in a raise at a consistent level… one at 90 days, one at 6 months. Before this meeting, the boss’ thought had been 1 at one year, 1 at two years.

So excited! I don’t start til 1/1 and I won’t be able to afford to decorate my office until I’ve worked a while but still… came home and right here to tell y’all about it :)

I’m 29 and single and moved a year and a half ago to a smallish city for an in-house counsel position. Pretty much all young professionals in my city work for my company, though for various subsidiaries or affiliates. Also, everyone my age tends to be married with kids, so the majority of my friends have fallen into the 23-27 age range and most work for an affiliate of my company, so I’m not directly their lawyer.

Since I’m single and didn’t know many people when I moved here, I got really involved in company social activities like the softball team and the social activities group and have continued to try to find new, single people to befriend. This was recently made more awkward when we had some corporate reorganizations and I’m now temporarily in management through the end of the year. Also around the same time we hired a couple of contract administrators who are very attractive guys in their mid-20s. While they don’t report to me, I do help them draft and negotiate contracts and they are in my company (not an affiliate). One of these guys started finding a lot of reasons to stop by my office with “questions” and the other kept finding reasons to stop by to talk about the softball team – I thought the attention was cute but didn’t think too much of it.

Yesterday I wound up in corporate training with these two guys and talk naturally gravitated towards what we do for fun and bars we like to go to in town. Now there are email strings about going out to bars this weekend or new sports leagues we should join/create and snowboarding trips. Am I heading into dangerous territory? Our company does not prohibit dating each other and they’re not my direct reports, but it still feels inappropriate to even think about dating younger guys that I work with and that I outrank. But on the other hand, dating options here are few and far between and I’d hate to put distance between myself and two seemingly awesome guys out of some fear that it wouldn’t look right or that something might happen romantically with one of them. Thoughts or advice from the hive?

I don’t know much about this, but if they don’t report to you, if you don’t have the power to fire them or give them raises, if there’s no policy against it, I don’t see the problem ethically. Perhaps you should get to know them before deciding to date either/both since you don’t need some drama dude who spreads info around!

Oh, definitely re getting to know them better! I was more wondering whether I should avoid getting to know them outside of work altogether (and start limiting our non-work interactions even in the office) if it might be deemed inappropriate.

I went out with a guy from my company’s subsidiary, we work in the same building, never work together, sometimes run into eachother. Dates went fine, but just turned into an LGP situation. After it ended, I was really stressed about running into him at work. Those first few times were pretty awful. I’d say proceed with extreme caution.

Be carful b/c there are alot of guy’s who want to date you, b/c your young, single and an attorney whose admitted to the bar. I do NOT have this problem at work b/c I am the young one at the firm, but live in NYC where there are alot of guy’s who live in my area who alway’s talk to me at the store, at the laundrymat, and on the bus and subway’s. While you should alway’s be nice, you should be a little formal and reserved b/c these guys will not let up if you are to friendley to them. FOOEY!

Better to get to know them slowly than jump into a relationeship. There are so many guy’s that you should NOT EVER JUMP TO QUICKELEY. I am following Myrnas advise and laying back. The men will come to you. NO need to chase them.

One piece of anecdata from my friends: some large companies based in more off the beaten path locations are thrilled when employees are in stable long-term relationships with each other, because it makes it that much less likely their valued talent will leave Small Company City for Cool Large City. I’ve even heard that such companies are even more thrilled when an employee buys a house in Small Company City for much the same reasons.

With K’s sensible caveats, along with the usual admonition to keep it quiet at work until it becomes serious, I say there’s nothing wrong with the idea of dating someone who works for the same company (especially if it’s the only game in town for young professionals).

I think it can go both ways in terms of retention. Many employers may also frown on it because they’re likely to lose at least one employee if there is a break up and it turns awkward. People often don’t want to be around an ex or the people who link them together. It also has potential to create an uncomfortable work environment for others. Personally, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. But I’ve never been there. I always minimize how many folks I hang out with outside of work anyway because I try to keep the two worlds separate. It’s hard enough to navigate business relationships sometimes without having to wonder who knows what about you. You’ve done really well keeping this balance so far with friends, however, so if anyone can mange a different level of relationship it sounds like you would.

True. Personally, I try to keep it separate too, but that’s because I’ve never lived somewhere that’s more of a company town. My single piece of anecdata comes from multiple employees of one particular corporation, so this anecdatum could in fact be an outlier. Clearly Rule Number 1 (know your office/company) is in play here.

Do any of you lawyers have experience with working remotely for an extended period of time. I’m hoping to spend 4 months in a different state next year for personal reasons, and I’m wondering how to present this to the partners I work for. I am in mid/big-law, but it’s a flexible place (people frequently work from home one day a week). Most of the time I do all client contact over email/phone anyway, but I do realize that it’s somewhat career limiting to not be around and be seen for such a long time. Any tips?

I would try to visit the office once a month for two days. I work with many satellites and it’s always nice to see them when they come in. The “regulars” who visit have much better connections in the firm and to the clients than the ones who don’t.

Yes, I’ve been a telecommuting lawyer for years. There is so much you can do on e-mail and phone now, that often it’s ages before people realize I’m not in the home office. I do check my email like crazy because I don’t want people to think I’m not working, so I try to respond immediately. There are resources on the Internet about successful telecommuting. I put together a whole package with memo & proposal before I started, and had a trial period until everyone realized it could work. They wanted to know where I would go for meetings if I needed a conference room, what sort of telephone set-up I’d have, what sort of remote computer connection I’d have, etc. I spelled it all out in a big memo and that worked. You need to prove to them that you’ll still be able to do your job. In your case, I think detailing how you’ll keep up with clients is key.

I’m a junior at a small firm, and actually have a lot of responsibility for how junior I am. My boss reviews everything that is sent out, but I have a lot of discretion in how I’m moving along the files etc. Turns out, I’m not as self-motivated as I thought because I have a hard time pushing myself to work if I don’t have a strict deadline.

So i have a couple questions
1. How do you motivate yourself without a deadline?
2. How do you decide how to push the litigation along/what to do next? My boss wants to see movement, but often doesn’t want to hear about certain cases unless he thinks they’re a priority so I’m not really sure what should be done next.

1. Look at a case file or two of the type of case you’re doing that has gone all the way from complaint through resolution. That will give you an idea of what kinds of things you should be doing next. It will take a lot of unbillable time, but it’s a really useful exercise.

2. Read a couple of books. I read Mauet’s Pretrial book and found it to be helpful.

3. See if your boss has a 30 minute or so block of time one day to sit down and talk to you about this. This works only if you’re very junior, I think. The first time I had to conduct discovery, I sat down with the partner and just said straight up, “I’ve never done discovery before, so I’m really not sure how things progress. I know we’re doing X right now, but what comes after that and after that? I want to know the big picture so I can figure out what I need to be doing.” He was very receptive to this. I did it during a time I knew he wouldn’t be busy and set up an appointment by saying that I wanted to talk through the discovery process with him (so he’d know it would be longer).

For your first problem, I don’t have a lot of great answers. I find myself putting stuff off sometimes when I don’t have a deadline, too. I think a lot of people do this. I try to remember what it feels like to be really crunched for time and convince myself that I don’t want that to happen. I also have a very strong competitive streak, so I try to tell myself that working on something now and being seen as ahead of the ball is going to give me extra reputation points.

Can’t help with 2, but for 1, I like to send myself emails for each task. YMMV, but I try to keep my email inbox as empty as possible. Everything gets sorted into a folder (by client, personal, office-wide, etc), so the only emails in my inbox are pending assignments. When I start getting behind I send myself a quick email of “Do X” or “Call Y,” which I can only delete once the task is completed. My dream goal is an empty inbox, so I find being able to delete my reminder emails to be incredibly satisfying.

I do this too! I cringe when I see people with hundreds of messages in their inbox. I keep things in my inbox that I have to take care of that I haven’t done yet as a sort of to-do list. This includes me sending myself emails. Additionally, if I have a particularly crazy day, I will set alarms on my cell phone (or my Outlook calendar if I know I’ll be at my desk all day) to remind me. I really can’t focus on longer-term projects unless I get these little tasks done on a day-to-day basis, because I always fear the buildup of stuff….

I mention to the reviewer (casually) that I’ll have something for them to review at a self-set deadline. E.g., “hey, just a heads up that I’ll have a doc for you to review on Friday.” They usually forget/ignore it but it “sets” the deadline in my head (e.g., I told K I’d have this for her on Friday. . . she’s expecting it. . . must have done by Friday or K will be disappointed).

The other thing that is helpful to me is the fear of missing out on fun non-work activities. I noticed about a year ago that if I have a dinner with friends or movie date with BF or run planned with a friend, I’m much more likely to get to work early and focus on the tasks at hand so that I can go.

As for moving the case along, I don’t know what your practice area is, but I have a high volume caseload and all of my cases have the same basic “life” – evaluate, answer/dismiss, Rule 26 conference, discovery/depositions, MSJ and MJOP, and sometimes trial (I wish there were more trial). When I first started my current job I made a detailed checklist covering those various stages, and it was helpful to see where my cases were and what the next step was.

My dad’s birthday was this week. I’m not at all close with my parents. They’ve made it clear that they strongly disapprove of a lot of things in my life (to the point that they’ve told me that they don’t consider me a member of their religion anymore (I AM, just a different denomination)), and, apart from that, they’re just not pleasant to interact with. We talk on the phone occasionally (every other month) and visit seldom (we don’t live close to each other). I left my dad what I thought was a nice/chipper/cheerful happy birthday message on their answering machine, since they were out when I called, and I get this email from my mom today: “Not trying to be critical here, but did your 20-second recorded message left early in the evening on Dad’s birthday represent your best effort? Was that adequate in your opinion?”

It’s amazing how criticism from your parents can cut you to the heart, even when you’re an adult and even if you’re not close. I try to think of them in my mind like a crazy great-aunt or some other relative that doesn’t know me very well, so I don’t have to take their opinions too seriously.

Agreed with the first thought, major agreement even… as for the rest, I hope there’s a part of you that knows that you are amazing for continuing to make any effort at all and that your mother’s passive-aggressive drama has nothing to do with you and everything to do with her. ((hug))

I’m sorry, Q. Hugs. I have a similarly restrained relationship with my parents, and am not talking to my father at all anymore. I can imagine leaving that voicemail and thinking to myself that I was being the bigger person, being thoughtful, and doing the right thing as a child acknowledging her parent’s birthday, even though I really didn’t want to talk to them. I can also imagine one of my parents saying the exact same thing in response, throwing it back in my face because it didn’t meet their standard of what I’m “supposed to” do, and how hurt you must feel. Through therapy, I’m working on mentally divorcing myself from them. They are not a positive influence in my life. It’s not my fault I’m biologically related to them. I don’t owe them anything.

Thanks, R. I’d really like to try therapy — I’ve never been brave enough. I finally have a job with health insurance, so I don’t really have an excuse not to figure this out. I’d love to just talk out all my parent-related thoughts. My husband gets some of it, but he has really nice parents, so I don’t really feel like he gets it. My parents are a mild irritation to him but they are a major source of pain/grief to me.

I just noticed I said “restrained” instead of “strained.” Freudian slip, I think. I never knew how poorly my parents treated me until I met my in-laws and realized other families behave very differently to each other. They actually like and respect each other. They genuinely want to spend time together. They lift each other up. I felt like I was visiting another planet. My husband doesn’t really get it either, and lucky him for having such great parents. Therapy has really been such a blessing for me, not only in helping me deal with my past but also helping me recognize bad patterns of behavior I learned from my dysfunctional family that I do not want to bring into my own family. These patterns continue to haunt me, but are fading slowly. I really encourage you to find a therapist you trust and vibe with, or talk to your trusted religious leader if that applies to you. It’s a long, hard road in therapy because there’s so much to heal from, but it’s absolutely been worth it.

Wow that stinks. I have to say after reading this and other parent-type posts, I have really eased up on my MIL. She may never be my favorite person in the world, but she is loving to my husband, very welcoming to myself, & I am soooooooo thankful my parents & inlaws are not as bad as some of the situations detailed by other ‘retts. Hugs to you.

hang in there.
I have a crappy relationship with my parents as well. My dad had several birthdays where I struggled with whether to call him, and called for a few, but wasn’t “happy” and “loving” enough.

As long as you are doing the right thing for you, and you can sleep at night. That’s all that’s important.

They are withholding with their love and still expect you to bow, scrape, and play the perfect, chummy daughter? Sheesh.

Your mother is lucky I’m not her daughter, or I’d have said:
” Go and ask yourself why after foisting all the crap you’ve thrown at me, that you think you deserve to be spoiled and doted on. I believe the condition you suffer from is called: aggrieved entitlement. Hope yours gets cured soon.”

I appreciate everyone’s responses. Sometimes when you grow up in a dysfunctional parent-child relationship, it’s hard to tell what’s ok and what’s not. Seeing my husband interact with his (very nice, normal) parents has clarified that a lot for me. And seeing your responses helped reinforce for me that this is not a normal way to act.

TJ: Firm Bio
I’m a brand new attorney at a small Midwestern firm. I’ve been asked to write a bio for our firm website. My question: What are the key things that you look for in a bio? How do I write this when I have no experience, but still want to look legitimate? Right now I’m only doing research assignments for the partners, but all the other bios specify an area of practice, what do I say? Thoughts from the hive? Thanks in advance!

I struggled with this last year when I started, too. I looked at the most junior associates’ bios and used those as a model. First, I included practice areas. Just take the areas that you’re doing the memos in and say you’ve done work for clients in the areas of X, Y, and Z. Then I included my biggest achievements from law school (moot court awards/law review position). I kept mine pretty short because it’s always weird to me when someone who just graduated has a bio that’s pages long.

sorry, didn’t reply in the right spot: Try another brand. When I got a positive finally, I took one pregnancy test in the morning that I photographed, and then ran it through photoshop to heighten the contrast and could just barely see a line (yeah, I did that) and then used a different brand later in the day that turned bright pink IMMEDIATELY. You are most likely pregnant! Congrats!

pretty sure a line is a line, if it appeared in the timeframe of the test (I think most are 2 minutes to 10 minutes? Read the paperwork) If it appeared after the timeframe or you didn’t look at it until after the timeframe it’s inconclusive. Get another test and take it first thing in the morning, as that’s when hormone levels will be most concentrated in your urine. Or at 3 am if that’s when you wake up, have to pee and can’t wait any longer to test again (been there)

It is a positive result (the package literature should say so). My first test with my youngest was so faint I had to have my husband check to be sure I wasn’t imagining the line. False positives don’t really happen. You will get a clearer line in a few days or weeks or first thing in the morning when the hormones are more concentrated. So congratulations!!

Is it one of the tests that makes a + sign? If so, go get a First Respose Early Result (pink dye) and retest with that. The + sign tests are notorious for false positives and dye problems. Good luck!!!

I believe the color of the line gets deeper the further along you are in the pregnancy. The test is for the pregnancy hormone (HCG?), so as the pregnancy progresses, the hormone level increases. I remember my OBGYN commenting that my HGC levels were increasing nicely at my first two visits.

Ditto to what a few others have already said. The darkness of the second line is an indication of how much hcg is in your urine. First morning urine should have more hcg than just a random quick pee in the middle of the day when you weren’t really holding it. Confession: when I finally saw a second line after ages of trying, I did a test every morning for a week just to watch the line get darker (was also getting blood tests because of previous problems but I still peed on sticks – that visual of the pink lines was so comforting for me!). Congrats!

Does anyone know where I can find an objective comparison of Kaplan and BarBri for bar prep? I am in a small state at a small school, and I think those are the only options offered. Does anyone have any personal recommendations either way?

I did the Barbri course for my first state, I really liked it. I used their books for my second state, and passed as well. It works. But I can’t say anything in comparison to Kaplan–although at my school I think it was about 90% Barbri, the rest Kaplan, so it was easier to find study buddies?

I don’t think you’ll necessarily find a comparison as most only spend the money for one or the other. One blogger hated Barbri, so you could read through her reasons…

http://legallyfabulous.blogspot.com/search?q=barbri

but I took barbri, loved it for the following reasons:
-b/c you follow along (ignore what you think can be ignored, i.e. the pre-reading) and you’re good to go)
-b/c your friends are doing it too and can commiserate/explain things since they’re on the same topic
-b/c they give you more than enough material to provide enough practice MBEs
-b/c it’s tried and true; and they do that throwing out the question that everyone got wrong thing.

I posted toward the end of this morning’s TPS column comments and it was suggested I re-post since it was later in the day. Thanks so much to everyone who already responded.

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I’ve been feeling kind of unhappy about my marriage lately and am trying to figure out why. I can be direct to the point of brusqueness and have pretty thick skin, so using the Golden Rule to figure out how to treat people isn’t always helpful to me. What seems like completely fine behavior to me hurts other people’s feelings, including my husband’s. I feel like we frequently have interactions where he seems (to me) to get upset out of the blue and I feel completely blindsided and bewildered by his reaction. He rarely tells me right away why he’s upset and instead there’s a chill that settles over everything. It often takes me another few minutes to realize the chill has crept in, and then I’m left wondering (1) at what moment the chill arrived (2) whether it’s actually a chill or just a break in the conversation (3) if it was something I did, what it was that I did and (4) why what I did was hurtful. The result is that I start asking a lot of questions. “Are you upset? Are you upset with me? Why are you upset with me? Was it that I said X or was it Y? Was it how I said X? Yesterday, you said something like X to me — do you think what I just said was different from what you said yesterday? In what way?” These questions often make him more angry because he feels like I’m grilling him/challenging his right to feel hurt. I see it as just trying to figure out what I did, why it was hurtful, and how to not do it again in the future. I also feel like he just clams up, leaving me to guess at why, or even whether he’s upset. Sometimes he also gets upset about something I did or did not do — for example, he might be upset that I spent a Saturday afternoon with friends instead of with him. It might be that he’s completely justified — maybe it turns out that this is the fourth Saturday in a row we’ve spent apart, but because they were all for different reasons (work, travel, family obligations) it didn’t occur to me that we should spend that Saturday together until he points it out. But he doesn’t point it out in advance. If he said “instead of going out with your friends, how about if we do something together instead — we haven’t seen each other much lately,” I’d cancel my plans with friends immediately and feel like of course we should spend time together and how happy I am to have a husband like him. Instead, he’ll say “sure” if I ask if he’s okay with me going out with friends, but the next day he’ll be upset. Then we’ll have the long, drawn out “are you upset” conversation. He wants me to want to spend time with him — and I do! But I need him to tell me what he needs. When I’ve asked him to do this, he says he shouldn’t have to, or that he doesn’t want to feel like he needs to beg me to be with him. A lot of this comes out of the fact that, shortly before we got engaged, I broke up with him. Looking back, I’m still not sure why I did except that I panicked about how serious our relationship was getting. There were other issues, but I think a lot of those issues were more about things like political disagreements or just those little differences that every relationship has. Since my parents divorced when I was very young, and most of my family is divorced, I never had a sense of what a good relationship looks like and so thought any conflict meant the relationship should end. I think the break up came out of nowhere for him. Instead of getting angry, he just told me very simply that he loved me, that even if we were breaking up he was glad he had known me, and that if he thought begging would keep me, he’d do it but that he respected me enough to know that I knew my own mind and that if what I wanted was to end the relationship, he would respect that. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. It was so vulnerable and so simple and yet so dignified and elegant. That was the moment that made me realize that breaking up would be the biggest mistake I’d ever made and that this was a man with integrity, self-respect, and thoughtfulness. I married him in large part because of that moment. And for the most part, that’s exactly the person I got and why I love him so much. But the way he sees that moment is that he was weak and groveled to me and that I deigned to take him back. He now feels he can’t show weakness to me in our relationship because our relationship is already unbalanced and that just unbalances it further. We’ve had a number of fights in the last few weeks because of this. I feel like this situation is untenable. I actually feel like the relationship IS unbalanced, but in the opposite direction. I feel like I’m always reaching out for affirmation from him and often not getting it. I believe he loves me, but oftentimes I feel like I’m an annoyance to him. I feel like every fifth move I make or conversation we have results in me doing or saying something that makes him feel like I don’t respect him. He said recently that he worried he’d lost the woman he married because he married a strong, outspoken woman who didn’t take s—t from anyone, and I wasn’t like that with him anymore and he worried he’d broken my spirit. I feel a little like he has.
I’m sorry this is so long. Written out, it seems so painful and sad. Like all relationships, most of the time isn’t like this. But these interactions just seem like we’re both hurting each other and only because we each feel so vulnerable and want so much to feel loved by the other person. I don’t really worry about our relationship in the long run. We talk about these things a lot and talk about what we can do to make things work, but I worry about how much we’re running into a brick wall.

I’m not sure the question here… but I wonder, if you’ve had issues with other people’s feelings too, was this something that’s gotten worse over time? Is this something your husband wasn’t bothered by before you wed or is this a long problem he’s finally speaking up about? If you haven’t yet tried but can afford it, have you visited a marriage therapist?

I can’t tell from what you wrote whether you want to change your ways, whether you want him to accept you as you are, or if you want to end things… regardless, I hope things improve for you in whatever way you’re wanting!

I’m sure this has occurred to you, but it sounds to me like you have a situation that could really benefit from therapy– probably for both you-as-a-couple and you-by-yourselves. It sounds like you both have insecurities to work through, that they are impacting your relationship in meaningful ways, and that your best efforts and communicating with each other just haven’t been enough to really understand each other.

Your situation actually sounds very similar to my marriage, except that the roles are reversed– let me throw out a few thoughts, and maybe they’ll help?

I sometimes get upset with my husband for what seems like no reason, or a very small reason (sometimes it really is nothing to speak of, because I have some mild mood disorders). I’ve worked really hard to control my anger/frustration when it isn’t a big deal, but it’s a struggle for me. My husband knows me well enough to see the unhappiness in me, and one thing we’ve had to work on is him learning to let it go. We have to both understand that sometimes I get mad for no good reason, and the best way to handle it is to let it go — I can shake it off, but only if we don’t make a big deal of it. If he starts in with the “why are you upset?” routine, things will just explode, when they don’t need to. The result is that he has to trust me to tell him when something really *is* wrong, and I have to do that–I can’t make him guess. He also has to trust me when I tell him that it’s nothing for him to worry about, and–again, this part is important–I have to earn that trust. If something is legitimately upsetting me, I have to say so– as much as I want him to “just know better” (and I do!!), it’s not fair for me to make him guess with me. If your husband wants you to be both responsive/sensitive and also not walking on eggshells, I think you may want to try a similar arrangement. Explain to him that you will trust him to tell you when things are wrong, so that you can be more independent, but that he has to hold up his side of the deal, too.

My now-husband broke up with me for about 24 hours, quite suddenly and not long before our engagement. I was devastated– and I begged. I think it has impacted me, but not in quite the way you describe. I feel insecure. It shook me, and made me feel inadequate (there was another woman involved, although nothing had happened between them). I still carry some of that insecurity–could that be part of the problem with your husband?

I agree with the therapy recommendation. It sounds like you guys could really benefit from an outside perspective and some advice, specific to the two of you, about how to break these bad communication cycles when you fall into them.

For what it’s worth, I think the challenges you are describing are present in most marriages to a greater or lesser extent, and are definitely not insurmountable. It sounds like one of the root issues is your husband’s fear of vulnerability– it’s hard to be honest about what you want or how you feel (i.e., “can we hang out this weekend instead of you hanging out with your friend” or “when you said X just now, that hurt me”) if you’re worried about being vulnerable. It took me a long time to realize that expressing how I felt/what I wanted was not actually a sign of weakness. On the flip side, if, for example, he has repeatedly expressed an interest in spending time together or missing too many weekends together, then you should be making an effort to work in those times with him so that he doesn’t feel like he has to constantly be asking for it. The good news is that it sounds like a gap that the two of you will be able to bridge if you both work at it. And therapy is probably a good first step towards dealing with it productively.

To echo what’s said above, I think you really should try to get thee to a couple’s therapist, if only because this sounds a lot like some of the dynamic that had built up between my ex-husband and myself without me noticing how bad it had gotten, until he asked for the divorce. And once he’d made up his mind about that, there was no convincing him that we were falling into bad patterns, but that at heart we were still the same team we were when we got married 3 years ago, and were prime candidates for couple’s therapy, and no convincing him to work with me.

I identify with several things you wrote about yourself in your post, especially the fact that the Golden Rule gets me into trouble since things that would not bother me apparently bother others a lot. My temprement is to focus on 1 thing at a time, so if I am in the middle of a project I won’t notice that someone walks into the room angry or upset. Reading faces is hard for me as well.
I’ve found that recognizing emotions and talking about them is a learned skill, I didn’t learn it as a child and people always assume that women are good at understanding and talking about emotions. Therapy was really helpful for me to learn to identify, label and verbalize emotions. I still get have to work to recognize when people are upset and why but I pay a lot more attention to it now.
It is hard to tell from what you wrote if your problems are a result of your blindspots or your husband’s oversensitivity or what combination. Even if you and your husband do break up it might be helpful to enter therapy to see if there are skills you can learn to understand and talk about emotions more productively.

This year’s DvF Zarita has an exposed zipper all the way down, but mine from last year does not. There is also the Sarita, which is more of a summer lace dress, rather than a party one, if that makes sense. This one is only in one color, but it has no exposed zipper. http://www.shopbop.com/deep-back-lace-dress-madison/vp/v=1/845524441945692.htm?folderID=2534374302070321&fm=browse-brand-shopbysize-viewall&colorId=14615

Not the color you’re looking for (although the purple could be nice in person, and it’s possible it comes in other colors, Nordstrom just doesn’t have them): http://shop.nordstrom.com/s/nicole-miller-lace-fitted-cap-sleeve-lace-sheath-dress/3277225?origin=category&contextualcategoryid=0&fashionColor=Dark+Cobalt&resultback=2416

Try another brand. When I got a positive finally, I took one pregnancy test in the morning that I photographed, and then ran it through photoshop to heighten the contrast and could just barely see a line (yeah, I did that) and then used a different brand later in the day that turned bright pink IMMEDIATELY. You are most likely pregnant! Congrats!

Any suggestions for colleague Christmas gifts? The tradition in our practice group is to exchange gifts amongst the attorneys (fairly small group). FWIW, its all men except me. From what I hear (I’ve only been here for a few months), its ranged in the past from silly to personalized gifts to standard ones like a bottle of wine.

I see so many minefields here, but also an opportunity to think outside of the box and have fun. Any advice from the hive?

what about items from a place like think geek dot com? They have things that are not generic but not super personal to cross a line or worry a wife, plus they’re fun and unexpected without being crass or weird.

For the OP, I usually do food gifts in the office for this sort of thing – a tin of chocolate covered espresso beans, etc.

If silly is your thing, someone I work with got a Pop phone (it’s a retro phone that you can attach to your cell phone) and thinks it’s great – uses it all the time at his desk. They’re about $15 on amazon.

Also, maybe not for your group, but if anyone needs a stocking stuffer idea, I recently got one of these and it’s awesomely useful: http://www.cwonder.com/home-decor/shop-by-category/electronics/bullhorn-speaker.html — just the perfect amount of amplification and you can throw it in your bag and take anywhere!

Uncommon goods is my go-to. What’s that? You want to see some links? Don’t mind if I do.
http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/eye-glasses-holder
http://www.uncommongoods.com/product/disappearing-civil-liberties-mug

I mainly go to uncommon goods because multiple versions of Santa Claus in my family all shop at thinkgeek already :)

http://deadspin.com/5959212/the-haters-guide-to-the-williams+sonoma-catalog
I don’t think you’ll buy anything from the named firm, but you’ll at least get into the right frame of mind for gift shopping.

Oof, this thread started at dieting and went straight to pregnancy, two of my sorest subjects. Not complaining— I know I can skip. But, you know, just for a trifecta, does anyone want to tell me about how they are getting promoted to the very dreamiest of all dream jobs?

First of all, thanks to everyone for your menu ideas on this morning’s thread. I have found out that “the kids eat everything”, in the words of their mother, so will be working on the menu tonight.

So….two completely unrelated (to one another or to menu planning), random questions that are currently at the top of my mind:

1. I bought awesome Deborah Lippman nail polish over the weekend and, as per my usual practice, applied it (base coat + 2 coats of colour + top coat) yesterday at work. Finished applying the last coat at about 4:30, left the office at 6:00, got home about 7:00 and then went about making dinner. Well, I thought I had left enough time for it to dry, etc., and I really wanted it to stay looking nice because I love the colour (Billionaire). However, notwithstanding my care, I’ve got little scratchy marks all over my nails, they aren’t all glossy and gorgeous, etc. I am annoyed. This happens to me every single freaking time I apply nail polish, even when I apply it at work. How can I get it to keep staying nice, glossy, etc., without putting my hands in protective bubbles? Grrr. Any pro tips? Am I doomed never to have pretty nail polish for more than about 2 hours?

2. I have decided to learn how to do cryptic crosswords. Any good resources that anyone can direct me to?

I tend to do my nails before bed, and I always get sheet indent lines unless I use Seche Vite as my top coat. All the other ones, even the other quick dry ones, tend to take a while to fully cure (i.e. 2-4 hours).

Also, sometimes the colour can be a thicker one, in which case the top will sort of smudge out of place if the colour coats aren’t dry. I don’t have Billionaire, so I can’t comment, but I do find some of Lippmans colours to be on the thicker side, so it may be the colour.

I get mine from nailpolishcanada dot com (the most originally named website ever- but they’re Canadian, and ship from Richmond BC, so they’re quite speedy for the Westerners in terms of shipping). It’s $11, which is comparable to Essie, and certainly cheaper than all the Lippman and Butter top coats that I’ve tried.

I’m quite certain it’s made of melted plastic and is toxic, because it smells terrible, but, it is by far the fastest dry top coat, and it’s pretty good at permeating the colour layers, so even if those aren’t completely dry when you’re putting on the top, you’ll be fine. It’s also quite resilient, I usually go 3-4 days with no chips, but if I want a whole week, I’ll double top coat with SV.

I can use SV, wait 15m, and then wash my hair, with no smudges or lines on my nails, it’s amazing in terms of saving time with my polish habit.

Yes, and working on the basement suite that we will be renting out. And discovered on Monday that we have a leak in our ceiling (not under our new roof, unfortunately, because at least our warranty would have covered that), so now we have a great big tarp stapled up on the back of our house. It’s like sleeping in a tent.

Other than that, things are going great and it is starting to look like an actual, lived-in house!

I think if you buy a cryptic crossword book, they’ll explain it. The clues always have two parts, one is often a scramble of letters, the other may be a literal definition. Cryptic crosswords take a lot longer than standard crosswords, but are a lot more fun (to me).

Also try the red Sally Hansen quick dry top coat for instant (no shipping time) fix. I also find that you can put the top coat over the sheet lines and other imperfections and the coat will hide it, unless the nail polish layers have actually scrunched up. And that fixing layer of top coat dries MUCH faster.

This may be too late to get much of a response, but I thought I’d ask anyway.

My colleague’s son is sick and has been sick for about six weeks. They are now bringing him to a hospital out of state for diagnosis/evaluation. His son is 11 years old. Any ideas for a “get well” gift for an 11 year old boy? I don’t know if he has any gaming systems, so I was thinking maybe a book or some other kind of thing a kid might want to do.

Heh – I feel so old and out of touch, but I don’t have kids and my friends’ kids are all under five.

My colleague’s almost-11-year-old used to be a huge reader, not quite to the same level now, but he is really into the Big Nate comic books and a series called Peter and the Starcatchers, which is the backstory on Peter Pan.

What about a cool, complicated Lego set of some kind? Or some sort of similar interactive construction kit? If he’s feeling up to it, it could help keep him busy in the hospital. Another idea is some movies too (could you ask his mom?) — he probably has a dvd player in his room or maybe a computer or a portable dvd player.

I just got a redline back and there are ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS with no changes! Yay! Needed that. I also just dropped off a beautiful, printed application packet all on pretty resume paper to my local City’s HR department for a very amazing, perfectly suited for me position in said City Attorney’s office. When they were checking to make sure all the bits were in their proper place, the HR person even said “nice paper!” It was pretty funny.

It’s for my city, that I’m really involved in, and I would really really love to work there. It sounds like it is going to be a very, very long hiring process, so I’ll have to sit tight!